Abstract

Dr J. V. Hepworth has provided the following Introduction to the published papers:

This meeting was originally planned to deal with the area between Burma and Java, in which UN and IGS teams had been active over the last decade. Events and restrictions compelled us to extend the scope eastwards into the active arcs.

Recent work is reported from Thailand, Sumatra and the Banda Arcs. This is a collection of papers on work in progress, drawing attention to some of the major problems, and is not intended as a review of the magmatism and tectonics of this region, which has an area larger than the USA or Europe.

The Geological Society meeting in December 1978 had been preceded by a number of conferences and workshops within the region itself, which had stimulated discussion, comparison and correlation. Thus the SEATAR workshop in Bandung, the CGMW sub-commission for SE Asia in Bangkok, the IGCP Project 32 (Correlation of Sedimentary Basins), and GEOSEA III (Geology and Mineral Resources of SE Asia) in Thailand, had contributed in October and November 1978 a number of important papers to the body of knowledge. At these meetings compilation maps of the region produced by various coordinating bodies were also displayed: the IOC Atlas series depicting tectonics, bathymetry, magnetics, gravity, crustal thickness and thermal gradient; the USGS maps of tectonics, earthquake data, bathymetry and sedimentation; the CGMW World Atlas series; and the maps of the Circum-Pacific commission.